Evaluation

Evaluation is na ongoing process of monitorting and a final assessment when appropriate, the final assessment is of the stated objectives. The most important objective to look at are the Impact Objectives. There are three ways that I found the Evaluation sections to be presented, the first was a general evaluation of the objectives in a simple paragraph, the second way I found was a general evalutation paragraph and following that are the impact objectives and then the output objectives, and the final way the book presented the evaluation was dividing the startegies and evaluating them individually. I found that I prefer the third way of evaluation because it breaks up all the important objectives into a way that can be easily followed and understood. I like this way the best becasue I will not have too many objectives but the ones that I do have will go in depth, seperating them will not only make it understandable for me but it makes it more appealing for the given company/ organization. 

On pg. 140 of the Strategic Toolkit book, is an example of an Outcome-Objective-Method table. This table will be used in my PR plan but the only difference is the catagories that pretain to my plan. I will be using, level of awareness, understanding, and attidudes. This table is a great way to provide information on possbile evaluation methods. The example gives one or two methods of evaluation but there is no limit as to how many you wish to do. How I can see this benefiting me is having a specific objective, as the book shows, and then being able to have a method to how I want the objective to be done. This is will help guide me if my objectives are smard objectives that are measurable, realistic, etc. 

To me, the importance of evaluation in PR is to take a snapshot of the outcomes throught the process and decide if what is being done or has been done has been successful or if it has failed. Good organizations can prove the achievements and the results, this all starts with good management. Evaluations should be conducted on a regluar basis so that it is not ignored and that the goals are actually being met. This is a different than monitoring, moitoring are more frequent with little time inbetween and evaluation is done based on the objectives. If an objective wants something increased at the end of the month then the evaluation should be done then, and so on. 

 

Research

The general research process includes the investigation of the practitioner's client or organization, the opportunity or problem, and the various audiences to be targeted for the PR effort. While studying the different case studies, I was drawn to the Media Relation Cases because of they way the information was presented. First is the general research goals, touches on what is to come in the particular section. 

Each subsection under the inetial research paragraph relates to a specific research method, first is client research, the pracitioner should be familiar with background data about the client/organization, this includes personnel, financial status, and reputation. It does not just end there, these cases are trying to enhance their media relations and attention must be given to the past and present media representives. I found this to be beneficial because how can an organication develop if you don't know what worked in the past and what changes were made. 

After establishing the purpose for client research we look at the opportunity or problem at hand (the reason for the program). Opportunity would present the good for itself, or has a problem arisen that will bring negative attention to the media. 

The final aspect of research is the audience research which is thought to be the most important. A media contact list should include:
 1. The type and size of the audience reached by each media outlet.
 2. The type of material used by the media outlet- spot news, featured material, interviews or photos.
 3. The name and title of the appropriate editor, director, producer, reporter, or staff writer who handles new of organizations such as the client's.
 4. The deadlines for that media contact- monthly, weekly, daily, morning, afternoon, eveining, date, day or hour.
This list is found on pg. 50.

The majority of the case studies use this format when implementing their research into their plan. I thought that the examples  I found were appropriate for the type of case and type of research that was intended. Not all research studies will be the same, I noticed this as I was looking at cases in different catagories like media, social media, internal, commnity etc. A difference I saw was in Social Media, ther is talk about a message and creating a story that can be most effective with the targeted audience.

This will all impact my research by really having to narrow down the importance of my product. The audience is a key part in my research, along with the client part. This also impacts my research because I need to have a focus group and along with deciding on my objectives which follows the research. 

Research & Analysis

The research part covers three specific areas of a PR plan, the client or organization, the opportunity or problem the organizations faces and the audience being targeted. Research is also used for media relations PR plans; they have the same aspects such as a target audience, a problem or opportunity that accounts for communication with media and investigating the client or organization to begin. The research aspect is not always called "Research" sometimes it is called Background, Analysis, Summary and Overview. Summary is just that, it is an overview of the rest of the plan, some plans are brief so this part can be skipped. The summary  has to be over the entire plan and not just the objectives, people are most likely to be interested in the end result and not the objectives/tactics. Research is a simple way of collecting information, you can collect it from employees, current customers/clients, former customers and focus groups. As I said earlier, these sections are not always titled research because the PR team has a goal and it goes deeper than the words below a title, it starts with the title. When looking at different case studies I started to reason with why the titles are not all the same. When I see "Situation Analysis" the first thing that comes to my head is that this case study is going to talk about a problem that the company is facing and the events that lead to this problem, sometimes it is not a problem and situation analysis can be talking about a positive opportunity for the company. When I see "Summary" I can assume that the content below is going to inform me about a company or event, for example on page 248 the title of the entire case study is, The Devt Diva Campaign, by reading this title I have the slightest clue as to what this campaign was about and that is when summary is used to give me the information as if I was at the campaign.

 From the ones that I have looked at in more detail and that I feel could relate to my plan, I saw the effectiveness of a proper title for their research component. I personally like the case studies under Consumer Relation Cases, mostly because this was on the same path as what my plan is headed on. Some information that really stood out to me when reviewing their situation analysis was it started off with stating the recent success and quickly mentioning the opportunity or problem it faces. After it moves on to history, the example in the book talks about Hallmark which is known for their greeting cards, the subtopic is about adding music to their cards that is relevant to todays generation. The history focuses on Hallmark and then moves its focus creating a card that will add music with this generatsion use of electronics. Moving forward, more useful infomation I found was the talk about how the company did test runs and the response from doing this. At the end of situation analysis is where the end results are expained. This is important because it helps guide the audience into whats coming next, such as objectives to improve or the steps that lead the company to such great success. 

This has helped me form a baseline for how I wish to go about my PR plan and either talk about and opportunity or a problem and how to fix it. 

Communications

Communications

In general there are four elements of communication and those are;1) theme and messages, 2) actions or special events, 3) uncontrolled or controlled media and 4) principles of effective communication. Plans don't always call it "Communication" other terms are, Planning, Execution and Strategy. Social media calls their communication section, programming and their primary strategy is to engage in a dialogue with an online community appropriate to your campaign goals, or develop your own online community. Themes and messages are the way a company engages human interest. An example of this could be a new car commercial, their message is within the commercial when they are showing the different safety features. Next are Actions or Special event(s), in the Public Relations book it talks about soft drink companies and how they let their clients vote online and would win awards, another campaign focused on fan-based flavors and let their fans in on promoting new flavors on Twitter. The next element is Uncontrolled and Controlled media, controlled media can be described as "tactics which PR practitioners maintain control over all aspects of the process". The final element is effective communication there are key elements to this that the book describes and those are: mutuality, propinquity, empathy, risk and commitment. 

After reading several case studies and their communications aspect of their plan, I found that a lot of their information and methods of communication were useful. I looked at internal, community and social media plans, I learned that the community is one of the most important audiences, this research focuses on understanding the client, the reason for the program and the community audiences to be targeted. Community Relations does not focus on all elements of communication because they only need the relevant ones which are 1, 2 and 4. I also learned that the social media case studies would best fit with my personal PR plan, I believe this because its goal is create a compelling story and the product I am evaluating has competition with other similar products. I will focus on the audience and make my message persuasive by reinforcing similarities that the audience has with the product. 

Objectives

 

Objectives are vital with in PR strategic planning to ensure resources can be used effectively and specific outcomes achieved. Objectives usually focus on a problem or opportunity, this is stated in the research section, setting objectives are not easy simply becasue many problems can arrise. This objective section will talk about smart and poor objectives set by PR plans. The following is a lost of objectives that should be in a smart objective; specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, relevant, targeted and timed. There is a difference between goals, and objectices, goals seem to be general outcomes, where objectives are more specific, immediate results. 

For this element of the PR plan, I chose to look at Media Relation Cases which starts on page 64 in the PR book. On pg. 65 and the top of 66, are the objectives. There is an excess amount of wording in some of the objectives, they should be specific with power words. Bullet points are easier to read and easier to follow but they were used when explaining non objective information. The last bullet point on pg. 65 talkes about why energy-saving goals were not made, and then went back to describing an objective, confusing to follow. As I continued reading the objectives, I noticed that none of them were measurable, meaning they did not include a specific percentage of increase/decrease, no numbers as in talking about increase participation by a certain amount. On the positive side, this plan did a good job of dividing up their objectives into specific catagories so its audience could know exactly what the objectives were targeting. Overall this was not a smart objective case study. 

A positive case study is found on pg. 75. Right away I see a subtitle, "Marketing Objectives" this is telling the audience that the objectives that follow will be about marketing. They are specific and you can tell this with out even reading them, they have minimal writing, as you read you will notice the use of power words such as; generate, awareness, increase, rally, etc. These objectives are including their problem/opportunity which touches on the relevant aspect. next up are the objectives for Actions and Events, again this tells me what to expect in the objectives to follow. The last bullet point on pg.76 gives specific information but not all in one objective, below are three objectives that tie into the main one. The sub objectives describe the outlets, media materials etc. 

In the end there are good and bad objectives but if your objectives include the 7 smart elements, your plan will be that much better and presentable to the PR team.